Snigaroo

I see, I did misunderstand you. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm not a modder and typically I stay away from these sorts of things, so now in butting my head in I hope I'm not misreading your intent, but am I correct in saying you're suggesting that you would like to create an offsite for users to collaborate with you for the development of mods and porting of content in a way which you would define as being beneficial and compatible with the game's original aesthetic/design, and to reduce the frequency of projects created which are contrary to that interpretation? The online thing aside, I'm not sure I understand what you would want out of such an offsite, and why you're worried about alternate aesthetic/design interpretations--universes, as you call them--being developed. Is not the point of creating a mod to allow users and modders to decide what kind of content they would like to use, whether it be in their games, with compatible mods, or simply to draw inspiration from? What is the downside of users having open access to this content, if whatever mods come of it are the user's choice to utilize or not? The only mods which are ever going to be universalist are TSLRCM and a few assorted bugfixes, after all; there is no great likelihood that the entire KOTOR community would become so reliant upon the usage of one new mod that it would become a standard, as TSLRCM has. Forgive me if I am misinterpreting you, I'm simply not clear on this.

I'm well-aware of the situation regarding the K1 mobile release, and I made my statement with that in mind. A market cut would be the likely result of such an act because the "free" mobile version would be more accessible to many, and thus the paid PC version would drop sales as people figured out ways to just use the mobile port alone. No purchase validation is flawless, and platform-to-platform just makes it easier to spoof and much, much more visible when it happens. There may be ways to mitigate the risk, but from a legal perspective it's not something I think Ty will want to mess with. I'm not the one who will make that call, though.

Thanks for the ping, @jc2. From a rules standpoint we have absolutely nothing against a full-game port. Porting some content from one game to another is quite different from porting all content, but again from the standpoint of the restructured rules there is nothing which prevents such a project from being undertaken, discussed, and uploaded here on Deadlystream. With that said, that is different from an attempt at cross-platform porting (IE making a hypothetical KOTOR 2 for mobile), which we did not think to address at the time that we restructured the rules. Frankly I have my doubts about how feasible such a concept would be anyway, but until @Tyvokka and the rest of the staff can weigh in I would offer an initial assessment that we would be against that--no discussion of it, no condoning of it, certainly no uploading of it. While a hypothetical KOTOR-to-KOTOR 2 port could (and probably would) need some form of purchase validation for both titles in order for us to feel comfortable with it being hosted here, a KOTOR 2 made mobile-compatible would be a direct cut into the market for the game, which would quite likely damage sales and increase the chances of ire being drawn over the issue. Keep in mind that this is my initial, singular opinion and assessment of the issue based on the wording of the rules, which as I noted don't fully account for this particular circumstance. When other staff have weighed in, the final consensus may be quite different.

I have serious issues with Apeiron in general, especially the progress of its development over the past three years and its online "presence," if you like. I think it's only fair for me to disclose that bias first thing. With that made clear, though, I have a deep distaste for the way the project has thus far seemingly been managed, and absolutely with how it's been conveyed to the fanbase at large, which I believe I would still have even without this accumulated bias. You say that the project lead is the one to speak to about these issues, but you are the first Apeiron volunteer that I have ever communicated with on any forum (to my knowledge, at any rate). I was on the subreddit the day that Apeiron was announced, and I still see every thread that passes through the sub as part and parcel of being a mod. Every Apeiron topic ever posted has only had fans in it to speak on the team's behalf, and the overwhelming majority of those fans have genuinely and innocently pushed the narrative that Apeiron is a mod which is free from C&D threat from any rights-holder. They've believed what you've said, and it's all so much empty words. I don't hold you to blame for this personally, or hold any ill-will towards you or even the idea of KOTOR being remade. My problems are twofold: a complete lack of communication on any channels which aren't dominated by Apeiron fans, and what is--in my view--the deliberate and continued misinformation that Apeiron will be legally treated as a mod. In defense of your team, I should have stepped forward with these issues myself a long time ago, but in my own defense I had (and still have) zero faith that the project will ever see the light of day, in all honesty. With that said, I still find the lack of communication outside of Apeiron-dominated channels disturbing, and the misinformation downright distasteful. Now that it seems that at least some elements of your team are attempting to be more communicative with other parts of the community, I think it would be to both of our benefits if these issues were addressed. I've made unpleasant claims about the Apeiron team's work, including about its overall competency to bring the project to fruition. Many have taken this to be unreasonable hostility on my part, but having been involved with indie development in the past, what I've seen thus far seems to me simply to be a reflection of the same lack of available volunteers that laid my own project to waste. Contrary to those who assume I'm simply hostile for the sake of being hostile, however, I would love to be proven wrong; I have simply never been put in the position of being able to ask questions of a developer before without going out of my way. I don't know how to contact your director, so if you could pass on to him my sincere hope that he would consider immediately removing the mod portion of the FAQ on your website, it would immediately alleviate many of my concerns about how Apeiron has portrayed itself thus far. If you would be further willing to request that he get in touch with me here or on reddit, I would love to coordinate an AMA with your team and the subreddit as a whole. Much of the trouble that exists thus far, I feel, stems from the perception that your team is uncommunicative and intentionally misleading your fans; if both of these misconceptions could be clarified through engagement, it would go a long way indeed toward engaging the remainder of the community with the project. Finally, because most of this post has been presumptuous on my part and I'm well-aware of it, I do want to say again that I don't wish you or any member of your team any ill will. If I'm being entirely honest I still have serious questions about the project, your team's capabilities, etc., but that's why I want to open a dialogue regarding it. I have been incredibly hostile toward the project in the past, but, again, I would love to be proven wrong and to find out this has all been a large misunderstanding on my part. If you all are willing to have an open dialogue, I'm very willing to change my views.

I know, and that was why I was clarifying. Though there's no reason why the Steam version wouldn't run on Windows 10; I've only ever had a single user report an irreparable issue with Windows 10 before, and to be frank I don't really believe even that is unfixable.

It's not the case, Steam version works fine with non-Workshop mods. Indeed, that method is recommended. The Workshop isn't particularly good for modding, and only an option for KOTOR 2 anyhow.

If you already own the games on Steam, there's no reason to repurchase them. Even if you encounter Aspyr-based bugs, the KOTOR 2 Steam version is perfectly functional if you revert to the legacypc beta, and if you don't encounter issues the Aspyr version doesn't cause auto-minimization on cutscenes, which can save quite a bit of time and doesn't necessitate manually patching in widescreen or upscaling cutscenes. That the traditional plethora of fixes is still an option on the Steam version means that you have more options with it than the GoG version.

I've got it now, I hope.

I've unpinned the 2016 Mod of the Year voting thread, but since I don't want to touch the NWMax thread since there may need to be discussion of whether the KOTORMax thread (I presume there is one?) may need to be stickied in turn, I'll leave that to a staff member more familiar with that area than myself.

We didn't handle the situation as well as we should have and we definitely had an unacceptable delay in communicating our reasoning, and we'll own up to that. But the threads weren't locked to prevent discussion, and we're not hosting cracks just for the fun of it. The Steam version of the game still experiences what I call the fullscreen bug, which forces an auto-minimization whenever two cutscenes are played back-to-back. Usually this bug results in the window being unrecoverable, which means that the game can't even be properly booted into--intro cutscenes are, after all, still cutscenes. This is a major problem and the #1 piece of tech support which /r/kotor deals with on a daily basis, and widescreen guides (such as Xuul's) are an integral part not only of our tech support on the matter, but also of the mod builds' recommended procedures, precisely to prevent this bug from ever happening. If you guessed that widescreen patching requires an unencrypted executable on Steam, you would be right, and that's why we're here. Even Xuul links to these executables directly in his videos. They aren't optional stuff for people on Steam who want to be able to play the game normally; even I have to utilize these .exes every single time I mod the game. We're not hosting these lightly, and that's precisely why we're not calling them cracks: they're named "editable" so people directed here to download them might not think about it too hard, and the threads in question are locked to prevent users from pointing out that they're cracked, just in the hopes that there's even less chance people who would use them for malicious purposes would notice. Realistically there are much easier ways to pirate KOTOR and KOTOR 2, especially since the GoG executables are fully unencrypted as-is, but we still took precautions just in case. As I said before, this wasn't a matter taken lightly. But the main concern is that the sites on which these .exes are currently hosted are positively infested with viruses, malware and pervasive ads, as you would expect. It isn't safe for users to get them from there, and yet in order to play these games properly many users positively require these executables. The staff have discussed the matter now at some length, and we've agreed that it's not justifiable to continue asking users whose only crime is owning the Steam version of the game to go to unsafe sites in order to download necessary materials just in the name of principles. We don't advocate piracy, but collectively the staff has (thus far) unanimously agreed that these are beneficial as tools, and that their potential uses for piracy (which their usage for, so far as we can police it, is still fully banned) are outweighed by their benefits.

View File KOTOR 2 Editable Executable This file is a hex-editable KOTOR 2 executable for use in widescreen patching. The file was originally produced by Squ1zZy, and therefore DeadlyStream offers no technical support for the file or its use. Submitter Snigaroo Submitted 07/24/2018 Category Modder's Resources  

View File KOTOR Editable Executable This file is a hex-editable KOTOR executable for use in widescreen patching. The file was originally produced by FairLight, and therefore DeadlyStream offers no technical support for the file or its use. Submitter Snigaroo Submitted 07/24/2018 Category Modder's Resources  

I believe I replied to you on reddit as well, but yes; you can read the announcement here.

Thanks very much for this, Leilukin! I'll be giving it a whirl in my next build test for sure.

Yes, it is a big shift, but what I meant when I said that was that there isn't going to be a systemic and continuous realignment of either community towards some nebulous (and weird) unifying centerpoint. There have been rules changes associated with the merger mostly so that the heaviest punishments in both communities are in line (IE so something perfectly fine on reddit isn't worthy of a permaban here), and I'm not going to deny that I think the changes are beneficial, but my emphasis was merely that I'm not foreseeing anything beyond what has already been changed. As for TOR content, I imagine it's because it's in the same game series, and I believe some of its assets are already hosted for free from legitimate sources online. I don't know much about that, though, so I'll let others clarify. It really is my actual username. Snigaroo is something I have to use because Sniggles was already taken on reddit and most people know me via reddit, but I go by Sniggles wherever I can.

So far nothing the K2 patch has added has needed to be censored, but once something has AFP has said he'll make a specific installer option for the spoiler-free builds that lack the spoilers in the info file. But thanks for looking out, JC.

(If anyone's hunting for the Discord link and can't find it, it'll be put up later this weekend, but you're more than welcome to join now from here!) Hello everyone! Although I hope many of you will also read some of the announcement on reddit to learn a little bit more about the premise behind what we’re doing, I know many of you probably don’t like reddit, or at least its format. For those who don’t, I figured it’d be a good idea to present myself here and explain why I think what we’re doing is a beneficial move—and, if I can, to allay any concerns you may have. Although I’ve spoken to and cooperated with many of the modders here before as part of my work on the mod builds, I was a hanger-on in the community a long while before the first mod build was ever posted, back well into the filefront days. At that time I modded for myself, in much the same way that I continue to do even today, the builds being a reflection of my interests. I mention this because I want to reinforce that modding KOTOR is and has been important to me, as important as I’ve claimed it is in the reddit thread. I mod my games because I enjoy the process of doing so, and I rely on and respect the mod community for producing the content which I utilize. If I believed this merger would in any way limit or harm the capability of you folks to do the work you do, I wouldn’t have agreed to it. This merger is happening because both of us, Tyvokka and myself, think that there will be a clear benefit to both sides in the process. That does NOT mean that the rules, culture, or expectations on either site are significantly shifting. Although there have been rule changes both on reddit and here on DS now with the implementation of this merger, we don’t expect any further changes in this vein. Our goal is not to homogenize or forcibly integrate either of the two communities, but to create a sort of fluency and ease-of-communication between them. In other words, we seek to have two separate communities that willingly cooperate with one another, not a single mega-community, which I think would be both impractical and unhelpful. The actual “merging” will therefore remain a primarily administrative one, wherein we hope to share the burden and work together to improve both communities, but with the goal of retaining their uniqueness specifically in mind. The sole exception to this is the Discord, which we hope will serve as a nice, casual mixing zone for the entire KOTOR community, including users and groups not affiliated with either reddit or DS. So, what exactly do we plan on doing then? I’m going to give an answer which might sound worrying, but I hope you’ll come to see as actually encouraging: we don’t know yet. Now, don’t take that as us having no ideas, because we have plenty. For one thing, as soon as wiki functionality here on DS is fully up I’ve already agreed to migrate /r/kotor’s wiki here, which includes many troubleshooting guides which we’ve refined over the years which some of you folks might find helpful—the mod builds, too, will eventually be cross-hosted. But as for everything else, we’re going to take things slowly and play them by ear, because we’re not sure how to best proceed yet. Our end goal is to allow the Deadlystream community to harness the large userbase and skills of the reddit community to help test and develop content for mods, while also encouraging reddit users who may be interested in developing their own mods to give it a try; on the flip side, we would also like to see mod and feature suggestions from the reddit community engaged with more actively from the folks here on DS. For direct interactions, with the exception of the Discord, that’s *all* we’re looking to accomplish at this time. How we get to that end goal, though, is a matter yet to be formalized. That’s because we want to try to find the best possible system for both sites, and are going to continue to take suggestions and test options until we find something that works, ideally without causing any hassle. We’re not committing to anything right now because we want to hear suggestions, thoughts, and questions first, and then we want to see whether our first ideas shake out well or not. If they do, more power to all of us—if they don’t, we’ll go back to the drawing board until we get it right. But whatever the final outcome is, I want to reiterate that it will be a system which will be minimally invasive. I take the shared administration of DS seriously, and I want to make sure as much as I’m sure everyone else does that there’s no “help reddit” quotas, influxes of members who haven’t the faintest idea of the rules of DS, and so on. We will change whatever needs to be changed to make sure that this integration goes as slowly as it may need to, with best possible outcomes on both ends. With that said, I think I’ve written enough. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if most of you had additional questions, and if you do have them please ask; I’d be happy to go into more detail about anything that you may be concerned or confused about, including any questions you may have about me personally. I’ll end by saying I’m excited at the prospect of working more directly with the mod community as I did working on the builds that released today, and I’ve got nothing but hope about where both sites go from here. P.S. – For those of you who do hate reddit’s format but would like to use the site, the best thing I can suggest is to disable the redesign from your account preferences at the top right, then download the Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) extension. It gives a lot of additional user-controlled features that can make using reddit tolerable.

I'd also recommend ndix's PMHC06 fix. It seems like it's a clear bugfix and a worthwhile addition.

I'm afraid it was my misunderstanding of which mod was being referred to that probably encouraged AFP to dismiss it. I didn't realize it was referring to the Peragus 3D model, and not the Peragus icon as it appeared on the galaxy map. I shouldn't give advice so late in the evening. Given what the original problem is and what the mod does, I think it's clear the original 3D model was the product of an oversight or the dev squeeze, which merits correction.

The Mandalorian Banner Fix is included in a different form in JC's Minor Fixes, so it can be excluded. I also think the Aleema Keto RDC and Kinrath bash mods are matters of personal preference and should probably be excluded, but I think the prestige class saving throw error is clearly a bug, and barring correction from HH I feel it likely that power cost correction is also a logical fix. I'd recommend their inclusion, but not the other three.

Presently in the Downloads section you can no longer view all the various subcategories of a game at once (ex. going to the "Knights of the Old Republic 2" category brings up all the subcategories on the right, but says there are no mods in the mother category). This was incredibly useful to me as I could view all the submitted mods for a game regardless of their category all at once; it'd be nice if viewing them all together saw a comeback in some way.